The Ruled and Bound
by Tolkien'sInkwell
Summary: The attack on Weathertop, from the perspective of the Witch-King.


**This was an assignment I had for my Mythology & Tolkien class (yes, they actually have that at my school! Yay!). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out . . . but tell me what you think!**

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The wraith lifts its head and breathes in deeply. The air is filled with the scent/feel of the One, sharp and acrid and irresistible. It is still far ahead, burning bright in the dimness. The wraith is desperate to get closer, drawn instinctively forward as by an offer of mercy to a man who is perpetually dying.

The wraith can also feel the fear in the Halflings it is pursuing. It does not experience the joy of the hunt anymore, but its absorption in its task alleviates some of the emptiness where its human soul once was.

In the deep recesses of its ruined mind, the wraith remembers being pursued the way it now pursues these. The memories are almost gone, their images and sensations belonging to a world with which the wraith can no longer connect.

The Halflings are heading for the ruin of Amon Sul. This is wounded land, still resonating from the countless battles fought across it. The wraith is confident here – pain and chaos, these are things it can understand.

In the center of the broken tower on the hilltop, the Halflings huddle together in a desperate last stand. The wraith advances slowly, inhaling their fear and feeling a surge of power, and something that is almost joy. They are but intruders in the wraith's world, and it will relish annihilating them. How many times, after all, had the soldiers of Arnor stood in this same way to defend their lonely watchtower? And what is their kingdom now but legend and ruins? These half-men will yield up this spot as it has been yielded a thousand times before. Two of them have already fled. The wraith knocks a third aside contemptuously. Only the bearer of the One is left standing.

At such close range, the One is no longer simply a presence, but almost a voice, whispering on the very edge of consciousness. The wild look of temptation (still familiar, even after so long) is in the Halfling's eyes. He resists, of course. Knowing what the One really is, he fights with all his being against its snare, while the wraith watches silently –

_Eight men with a feverish, inhuman light burning in their faces . . . a ninth man who looked on them with revulsion and shut them out of his fortress – until he looked into a mirror and saw the same evil in the face that stared back at him . . ._ A shadow of triumph passes through the wraith's mind. This one will fall too, the way those nine Men fell so long ago.

Finally, the Halfling gives in and slides the One onto his finger. His form jumps out painfully clean in the wraith's consciousness. It can feel the One like an all-encompassing shroud – and the wrong-ness of feeling it on someone else's finger, someone who has no right to such power . . . The wraith rushes forward, so close to its goal, so close to holding the One again – but the Halfling draws his sword, a pathetic short thing, yet it seems to shine out brightly, even in the dimness of the wraith's world. It is different from the brightness of the One, cleaner and sharper, enough to scour a creature like the wraith into oblivion. But the promise of the One outweighs these fears, so the wraith springs forward once again. As it swings its sword down, the Halfling dives away and suddenly the wraith hears his small voice cry _O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!_

It has been a long time since the wraith was last addressed in that tongue. Hearing it is like a physical pain, flooding the wraith's mind with sound and color – hidden memories of a time before the One, before the fading and the darkness, when the wraith was not a wraith but _alive_, a Man who had all the beauty of the world taken from him –

In blind fury, the wraith drives his sword into the Halfling's body and hears his satisfying howl of pain. The sound brings the wraith back into its familiar world. Heavy shadows fall back into place, hiding the remnants of memory. The One sits in the Halfling's unresisting hand – the wraith need only stretch out its own hand and take it –

A man rushes forward, holding aloft a flaming torch. He whirls it through the air and its light leaves bright, searing trails across the wraith's vision.

_Torches lighting the horizon like a terrible sunrise . . . angry cries filling the air – undead . . . abomination . . . naz-gûl . . . growing louder as the mob runs him down and suddenly the flames are all over him, burning, burning and yet he is not consumed and there is pain going on and on . . ._

For a moment the wraith forgets the call of the One and flees blindly, caught in the memory of long-ago fear. It flees until the awful memories are extinguished in the agonizing realization that the One is growing farther away again. The wraith shrieks in frustration and wheels back towards the One's call. It remembers the wound in the Halfling's shoulder and rides forward with a sudden burst of energy. It can already feel him slipping into the world of shadow. The wraith knows it is only a matter of time before he becomes a wraith himself, drawn into the thrall of the Eye. So the wraith draws nearer, still following, awaiting the moment when it can ambush the Halflings and become the newest wraith's guide.


End file.
